Real tuning of vocaloids

[Stigbn]

I found this video on youtube by "GuitarHeroPianoZero" about tuning vocaloid or other vocal synths. This time tuning means REAL tuning, like making out-of-pitch sounding vocaloids sound more in tune.
He uses the free plugin GSnap to make the exported wave file of the vocalid sound more in tune, and I find it very interesting, I plan to try it out. It's a little complicated to setup though, as you need a midi with the same notes as your vocaloid track.

how to tune any vocaloid/utau with midi tuning

I've always felt that some vocaloids sound more in tune than others, so this could help me a lot. I recently tested a trial of one that sounded so much out of tune on some notes that I couldn't use her, but maybe this trick could have saved it.

 

[___]

I've watched it and I'd say it's more gimmicky than useful, what I got from this video is that it's more about tuning the pit from scratch than correcting pitchy vocaloids ( any voicebank will sound a bit off in a raw state tbh ). From what I've seen so far it's a real time saver in an expense of very medicore tuning, not only that but it's very bare bones tuning too and glosses over all the other things that go into tuning but pitch.

Tuning by hand is a better option imo, if you're having trouble with a really pitchy vocaloid pitch correcting software like melodyne might be a better option.

 

[Stigbn]

Of course you should make all your normal tuning as you usually do in the vocaloid editor (attack, vibrato, dynamics etc) before you export a wav file. Then I think GSnap could maybe tidy your pitch up for you, depending on your settings.

Also, I tested it and found that normally it's much easier than what he shows, you don't have to have a midi file to tune you exported wavefile with, just select "chromatic tuning" in GSnap and it will correct your vocals fine, then experiment with the settings.

And it's my experience that some Vocaloids have a very fine pitch and don't need any pitch adjustment (at least to my ears), while others have very poor pitch, at least on some syllables, and some are a little 'wavy' on long notes, you can mask that with vibrato though.

Even though I have melodyne I think you need to to go through all the notes and adjust them seperately if they are out of tune, but using GSnap is more automatic, that can be both good and bad depending on your purpose.

Also I think there's two sides to this - some of the members here likes to edit in detail because they like to make covers. Correct me if I'm wrong, but editing and tuning is the whole point of making covers?
But some of us mostly write our own music and treat the vocaloid like a singer who just comes in and do his or her work, we might make suggestions, but don't really want to go into every little detail (Sometimes I do that too though, but you get the point).
Anyway, it's very easy to try GSnap and use it if you want.

 

[___]

I don't think using it just for some adjustments would do any harm but doing what he's suggesting, using it as a replacement for pit or tuning altogether would create rather lacking results. Also alternatively you can use singing skills in V5 to create some more pit for extra oomphf and polish.

I get that view point and I am aware of it and who am I to judge how others treat/use their voicebanks but I feel like voice synths are musical instrument that is learnt like any other and any attempts at extreme shortcuts show in the end results, I am of the opinion that learning to tune is really beneficial to a producers' works but hey, I'm not here to police people on that.

I do think this could be useful for adding final polish etc. thank you for showing us.

 

[Maribelle]

If anyone can I would love to see how this interacts with Miki since she has quite a few off pitch recordings in her vb :x It's an interesting method but I don't quite know how useful it would be in the long run tho :x

 

[Stigbn]

Maribelle: It was actually referring mostly to Miki. I had her trial, and she has a good voice but it's sometimes out of pitch. I decided not to buy her though, because of the pitch problem, so I don't have her to test, but that would be interesting.

 

[vocaloidcreatornoob]

Can you send me the link for this video?

 

[Stigbn]

the link is in the first message, but here it is again

link

 

[vocaloidcreatornoob]

the link is in the first message, but here it is again

link

Thanks

 

[Stigbn]

I've been doing some more testing. And at the same I sort of learned to use Melodyne Assistant, which I didn't use properly before.
- You can use GSnap without making a wave file first. Just put it on as an effect on your Vocaloid 5 track in the DAW.
- There's another similar free plugin called Mautopitch (Melda procuctions), that seems to be better at correcting pitch. I rendered the same track with GSnap and MAutopicth and Mautopitch was mostly closest in pitch, testing in Melodyne.
- IF you have Melodyne Assistant it can give better results and you have more control over each note. But in this case you have to render out your track as a wav-file and use Melodyne. Select all notes and use the Quantization macro - 'correct pitch' - set it to 100%, and it will correct pitch, seemingly without destroying your vibratos.